Brian Doyle - The Thorny Grace of It: And Other Essays for Imperfect Catholics

In the small chapel on Bleak Friday, Dark Friday, Haunted Friday, Despair Friday, I watch a small girl gape as the massive priest strides up the aisle and then shockingly sprawls prone on the floor, his face pressed against the golden wood.

This never happens; Father Jim always bows deeply and then strides briskly up and around the altar like he built it, but now he is sprawled out on the floor like a fallen heron or eagle or angel.

The chapel shivers with silence.

Is he okay, mama? Is he hurt? Is he sleeping?

We hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

This girl is maybe three years old, I think; old enough to be riveted, not old enough to be cynical about the stunning theater of the moment.

He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: with his stripes we are healed.

Whereas her brother is sound asleep on his mothers sparrow shoulder, his sweet drool marking a line like a river on the green meadow of her coat.

Of all the people on earth, of all the people who ever were and are and will be, how astounding, how incredible, that the one appointed to bear all ills, to carry all wounds, to stand for all, to be sacrificed and resurrected, to be both king of pain and prince of light, should be a thin Arab woodworker, a most devout and committed Jew. Do we gape in amazement at this totally odd detail as much as we should? Do we remember how wild it is that the One among us was not strong or wealthy, famous or charming, beautiful or honored, but a footloose vagrant on Roman roads, troublesome and strange? Of all the people in all the world, that guy? Thats the last guy you would ever imagine, the last kid picked, the homeless guy with dirty feet.

Could that be the point, the genius, the secret?

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

Amen to that, kid, I whisper to the gangly teenager reading Pauls letter aloud. Amen to that. The boy then opens his mouth and begins to sing in a baritone thicker than he is.

The naked altar, the empty yawning candleholders, the elderly priests sitting together in the rear of the chapel, the shy students, the graying neighbors.

To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.

Even unto a small chapel on a sandy bluff over a broad river thousands of years later His voice washes over a small girl with pink Sesame Street mittensthe left with Berts face and the right with Ernies. On her hat, crumpled on the seat she never sits in once, is the sweet bright face of Elmo; all I can see is an eye, but I would recognize that joyous eye anywhere.

What I have written I have written.

The sigh and rustle of the congregation like a wave in the sea. The crackle of their knees as they sink to the floor as He hangs on the cross. His last instructions: Behold thy son! Behold thy mother! And the penultimate line that always makes me cry, in my dark corner, where the sight lines are such that I can see the whole trial and murder but no one can see me crying: I thirst.

Me too, man, I whisper. Me too. For the sepulchre is nigh at hand.

The small girl gapes again when Father Jim sings the adoration aloud, her mouth falling open just like a kid in the movies who sees something spectacular. And then when a student stands up and sings back to Father Jim, she yanks her dads hand like a chain and he picks her up and her face beams over his shoulder like a sudden apple.

Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble, sings the choir.

Me too, you beautiful tall singing children, I whisper. Me too.

The shuffle of socks against the golden wood of the chapel floor. The boy in brilliant red sneakers kneeling to kiss the cross. The girl who holds her hair back with one hand as she kisses the cross. The boy who hugs it like a lover. The priest resting his forehead against it. The old man who touches it with his cane. The star basketball player who folds himself down and down to touch it with the huge nets of his hands. The shaking man whose touch is a series of taps. The shiver of silence as the priest lifts his hands in blessing but then walks away to the side, the one day all year when he will not walk triumphantly down the aisle like a hero parting a sea of smiles. The small girl puzzled as her mom and dad and drooling brother turn to leave.

Did he die, mama? Did the Jesus man die?

Yes, honey. He died.

But he gets born again? When does he get born again?

Tomorrow, says her mother, a freighted word I catch just as I follow them through the immense walnut doors of the chapel into the shocking lightthe last thing you ever expect on Good Friday is to emerge from the haunted darkness into such a crisp redolent spring afternoon, this nails me every year, no matter how wet a winter its been this day without fail is the most crystalline miracle imaginable, how ironic or momentous is that?but as I turn to shuffle west I hear the father say faintly, almost under his breath,

Today.

Maybe he meant something else altogether, maybe he was starting to say something about prospective dinner plans or what crucial basketball game was on television or what cool playground they could stop at on the way home, but I dont think so. I think the father, young as he was, and he looked to be about thirty, said the truth; we are all born again today. You and me and the kid with the mittens and the thin Arab woodworker. Today.